SUNSET ROMANCE: 3) MR. MULBERRY
My Saturday Evening Post:
3.
Elsa sits motionless, considering her position, surveying the community of seniors existing around her—and let’s face it, she reasons, that is all most of them are doing: existing. And she further reasons this is because they’d lost touch with their feelings. And, literally, lost touch with other human beings.
Elsa raises herself slowly from the sofa. With great determination she ambles to the reception counter.
Carol-Ann, Sunset’s office manager and daytime receptionist, had just witnessed the exchange between Elsa and Ernesto. Earlier, it had fallen upon Carol-Ann to handle the logistics for transferring Miles Stewart elsewhere.
“I would like to meet with the director,” says Elsa.
Carol-Ann responds in a voice as sweet as marmalade. “What is this about, Mrs. Peabody?”
“It’s about the rules,” says Elsa, emphasizing the word rules.
“Every room has a booklet with all the rules,” says Carol-Ann.
“Where?”
“The bedside table, in the drawer.”
Elsa wordlessly turns and saunters back to her room. Carol-Ann watches with faux sympathy and some amusement, assuming this misadventure will be forgotten by bedtime. Most ninety year-olds, she knew from a decade at Sunset, remembered their first grade teacher’s name better than anyone they met on any given day.
Elsa opens her bedside table. No rulebook. She checks the other bedside table. Nothing. And so she returns Carol-Ann, who looks over her half-moon reading glasses with an expression that implies, you again?
“No rule book in my drawer,” says Elsa.
“No? I’ll have someone find one for you.”
“You must have an extra copy in your office,” says Elsa. “I’d like to see it right now.”
“Mrs. Peabody, I’m in the middle of something right now. But once I finish I’ll…”
“I’d like to speak with the director,” says Elsa. “This minute.”
Carol-Ann looks into Elsa’s eyes and attempts to stare her down, but it is she who blinks. She picks up a phone, taps three digits. “Mr. Mulberry? Mrs. Peabody would like a word with you.”
Carol-Ann listens, then hands the phone to Elsa.
“Mrs. Peabody! What a delight. This is John Mulberry. How may I be of service to you today?”
“By explaining to me why my new friend Mr. Stewart has been moved away from Sunset.”
“Who?”
“Miles Stewart.”
“Yes, of course. I’m not allowed to discuss the medical problems of our residents. It’s an invasion of privacy issue that we never breach. I’m sure you understand, Mrs. Peabody.”
“I did not enquire about Mr. Stewart’s medical problems,” says Elsa. “I asked why you moved him.”
“Obviously,” says Mulberry, “it relates to health issues. Tests,” he adds.
“I see,” says Elsa. “When will he return?”
“I suppose it depends on the test results.”
“Is there a telephone number where I may reach Mr. Stewart?”
“Again, Mrs. Peabody, invasion of privacy laws prevent us from…”
“Good evening, Mr. Mulberry.” Elsa puts down the phone.
Elsa’s interaction with Ernesto, Carol-Ann, and now Mr. Mulberry has worn her down.
Although it is dinnertime, Elsa has no appetite. The giddiness that had made her feel like a schoolgirl hours earlier is gone. Instead, she now feels older than her natural age.
Elsa lowers herself into a corner chair in the games room, chilled and very sad. While others at Sunset try to keep their minds agile by playing cards and doing crossword puzzles, Elsa likes to play memory games, thinking back to various periods in her life and allowing memories to connect one to the next in a free-flow stream of consciousness, her version of meditation, call it contemplation. She does this to make sense of her existence in addition to retaining details about her past. Within minutes she is lost in herstory.
She does not feel a presence at her side, until it turns physical, a light tap on her shoulder.
Startled from her trance, Elsa looks up, hopeful Miles Stewart is standing beside her.
“Aren’t you hungry tonight?” asks Sara Barton.
Sara, a spry 86, is only five-foot-two with freckles and hair still red from dye, always full of spunk, eyes-a-glimmer—the heart and soul of piano sing-a-longs, which she’d initiated at Sunset..
Elsa shakes her head.
“What’s the matter, honey?”
When Sara first arrived at Sunset, apprehensive about nursing care facilities, she had created a shell around herself. It was Elsa Peabody, with her upbeat personality, who coaxed her from a defensive shield, always focusing on the positive side of assisted living, opening her eyes to this new, final phase of life. We get to be kids again!
“I met someone today,” says Elsa. “Someone very special. And when I woke up from my nap he was gone.”
“I love those dreams, too,” Sara chuckles. “Maybe he’ll come back when you’re asleep tonight.”
“No, no. He’s real. The people who run this place, they saw us talking this afternoon. Maybe they felt what I felt.”
“Whatever did you feel, Elsa?”
“I felt a feeling I never thought I’d feel again in my lifetime.” Elsa’s voice lowers to a whisper. “I think I felt love.”
Sarah beams. “That’s so beautiful! I want to meet him.”
Elsa shakes her head sadly. “He’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“They won’t tell me.”
“Why not?”
“They say it would invade his privacy for me to know where he went.’
“That’s ridiculous,” snorts Sara. “My privacy is invaded every day in this place!”
“Ernesto told me they moved him because of me.”
“Why you?”
“They saw us talking. Ernesto said they don’t approve of romance here.”
“So, honey, you’re saying they invaded your privacy by watching you, and then they took action that has left you hurt?”
Elsa nods meekly.
Sara winks. “Let’s make trouble!”